( From left ) Ross;
I don’t think it was possible for them Ross and Prentiss
to not look shiny. But it was still kind
of spooky, wasn’t it?”
In the end, Joanna’s smiling dou-
ble advances and strangles the real
Joanna with a stocking. The actual
murder takes place off screen, but
there can be no doubt about what
happened: When we next see Ross,
she’s in the Stepford supermarket
with all the other wives, walking
about the store in fully automated
mode. “Bryan chose to shoot it in an
unreal way, so they were almost like
a ballet moving in and out, up and
down the aisle,” Newman says. It’s a
melancholy ending that finds almost
every female character dead and
replaced by a machine—and it
proved deeply divisive. “If I had a
chance to do it again, I would do the
ending differently on my part,” Ross
says. “I sort of end up giving up. I
don’t fight at the very end, and
I think I would fight harder.”BACKLASH AND LEGACY
The Stepford Wives did not find great
critical or box office success, and ini-
tially many second-wave feminists
derided it as exploitative trash. A
1975 New York Times article
described how Columbia Pictures
invited feminist activists to aStep-
ford screening, only for them to meet
the film with “hisses, groans and guf-
faws.” Betty Friedan called it a
“rip-off of the women’s movement”
and then “stomped out of the
screening room.”
“She was very upset about our
movie,” Tina Louise says. “Very
upset. She thought Ira Levin was
saying that’s the way things should
be, but he didn’t feel that way at all.”
Neither did Forbes or the rest of the
cast. “Bryan always used to say, ‘If
anything, it’s anti-men!’” Newman
recalls. “If the men are really stupid
enough to want wives like that, then
it’s sad for them. I thought the menwere ridiculous to want to make
women into servile creatures.”
The controversy reached such
a fever pitch that one night after a
screening of the film, Forbes was
accosted by a woman wielding an
umbrella. “I wasn’t there, but I
remember him telling me, ‘My God,
some madwoman attacked me with
an umbrella and told me that I’m
anti-women!’” Newman says.
The film clearly struck a nerve,
one that fueled several made-for-TV
sequels as well as a 2004 remake
starring Nicole Kidman, Bette
Midler, and Glenn Close. The
remake jettisoned the original film’s
creepy atmosphere for a campier,
more comedic tone—and was met
with dismal reviews. But the origi-
nal has endured as a cult classic,
inspiring a new generation of horror
directors. Jordan Peele citesStep-
ford Wives as a key influence on his
breakout horror hitGet Out, which
examines racial exploitation in
an outwardly welcoming white
neighborhood.
The film’s feminist message has
also survived. “‘Stepford wife’ has
become code for some robot follow-
ing a script and meeting some male
misogynistic ideal of femininity,”
Mary Stuart Masterson says. “[It’s
about] negating your agency as a
woman.” And the film’s legacy per-
sists in every story where things may
seem perfect but there’s something
not quite right lurking under the sur-
face. “It was interesting to lull
people into this sense of security,”
Newman says. “And then the nor-
mality becomes very weird, and then
the weird becomes scary.”XHOLLYWOOD’S GREATESTUNTOLD STORIES
Katharine Ross
AGE 77
Joanna Eberhart
THEN After
an Oscar nod for
The Graduate,
Stepford raised Ross to
true leading-lady status.
NOW She starred oppo-
site her husband of 33
years, Sam Elliott, in
this summer’sThe Hero.Paula Prentiss
AGE 79
Bobbie Markowe
THEN Prentiss
came up in com-
edies likeWhere
the Boys Areand What’s
New Pussycat?NOW She
recently returned to hor-
ror with the 2016 Netflix
filmI Am the Pretty Thing
That Lives in the House.Tina Louise
AGE 83
Charmaine
Wimpiris
THEN Louise
was best known
for playing the movie
star Ginger onGilligan’s
Island.NOW Earlier this
year she starred opposite
Stephen Baldwin in
Tapestry.Nanette
Newman
AGE 83
Carol Van Sant
THEN The British
actress had roles
in seven of her husband
Bryan Forbes’ previous
films.NOW She’s written
more than 30 books,
including cookbooks and
children’s stories.Decades into their careers,
theStepford stars prove
they’re not just pretty facesWOMEN OF
WIVES
ROSS: PAUL ARCHULETA/FILMMAGIC/GETTY IMAGES; PRENTISS: DAVID LIVINGSTON/GETTY IMAGES; LOUISE: DIA DIPASUPIL/GETTY IMAGES; NEWMAN: JO HALE/GETTY IMAGES